


Puppy Love

by 0shadow_panther0



Category: gen:LOCK (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robophilia, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0shadow_panther0/pseuds/0shadow_panther0
Summary: ...isn’t so great when it comes from a four story death machine.Or, during the events of the storming of Atlanta, the Vanguard manages to capture Nemesis. Unfortunately, it seems to like Miranda. A lot.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s… twitchy.

Miranda doesn’t really like standing its general vicinity. Its movements are sharp and jerky, rattling like it’s about to glitch out of existence at any given moment. Even mostly restrained, its head swivels wildly, shuddering and releasing garbled words in a over-processed mockery of Chase’s voice.

Chase materializes next to her, arms crossed and staring up at the mech with a pensive frown.

“It’s kinda… spiky, ain’t it?” Cammie observes. “Hey, Kazu, you wanna pilot this one instead? Might make you look tougher.”

Kazu makes a disgusted noise. “ _Zettai_ _arienai_.”

‘Not a chance,’ scrolls across Miranda’s optics, followed by, ‘It’s way too tacky,’ as he continues.

“That’s your problem with it?” Chase says, brow cocking.

Kazu shrugs, cocking his head as he squints up at the gleaming black chassis.

Yasamin and Valentina, lagging slightly behind for a whispered conversation, finally catch up.

“Is it… wearing heels?” Yasamin asks.

Every head turns.

“...Huh,” Miranda says. “It is.”

* * *

 

The mech—‘Nemesis,’ Chase jokingly nicknames it, but the name sticks—is carted off and contained somewhere offsite. Miranda doesn’t ask too many questions. She’s still shaken by Atlanta, when it had said her name. And then it had spouted off in Chase’s voice and then there was that can of worms to contend with. She’s not particularly sad that it’s out of sight.

Dr. Weller has his theories, of course—some of which he and Chase remain infuriating tight-lipped about—but he offers to explain the science behind gen:LOCK, at length, to her.

She politely declines. She’s perfectly happy to leave the neuroscience to the neuroscientists.

Colonel Marin reluctantly allows Weller to put together a team to research the mech with the promise that it won’t affect the gen:LOCK team in any way, and then, with significantly less reluctance, rejects Cammie’s request to be part of that team.

After that, the Anvil seems to return to some sense of normalcy. For a few days, at least.

* * *

 

“Er, Lieutenant? If I may have a word?”

Dr. Weller approaches as she watches the gen:LOCK team’s training with Jodie and Leon, and all three heads swivel around.

“Lieutenant Worth, that is,” Weller amends.

She glances at Leon, who nods an affirmative, and she grimaces a little, following the doctor to a shaded alcove by a stack of crates.

“Now,” he begins as soon as they’re out of earshot, “I’m sure you’re aware of the new—ah— _asset_ we’ve recently obtained.”

‘ _Oh_ _no_ ,’ Miranda thinks, while the rest of her says, “Yes, Neme—the Union Holon.”

Weller nods enthusiastically. “Nemesis is fine, what’s important is that we’re all on the same page! Now—” he pauses with a flourish—“the subject at hand. The fact of the matter is, well. We need your help.”

“My—? Dr. Weller, I can’t imagine that I can be of any help. I’m a soldier, not a scientist.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that! We’ve got the science part down pat! What we need you for is a bit—ah— _social_ in nature.”

Miranda is completely lost. “I’m… sorry?”

The doctor chuckles, a little nervously. “You see, we may be able the Union Holon to talk to us! But—ah—it seems it’s only willing to talk to _you_.”

Miranda looks at him for a moment like she’s waiting for the punchline to a particularly bad joke. “You can’t be serious.”

“Per the contrary, I don’t think I could take this anymore seriously,” Weller retorts. “Lieutenant, I understand your trepidation, but if we can extract any information from this… Nemesis, then I hope you can set those feelings aside.”

Miranda stares at him blankly, and the doctor sighs.

“Please,” he says, “think about it.” He pats her on the shoulder as he passes. “Contact if you change your mind.”

* * *

 

It takes her a minute to shake herself out of her stupor.

She wordlessly walks back to her Strider team, and Leon and Jodie send her concerned glances.

“You—uh—you good?” Jodie asks.

“I’m fine,” she replies flatly, staring out at the training field where Kazu has trapped Cammie in a merciless noogie as she flails wildly.

“You sure?” Leon asks.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, a little too forcefully to be convincing. Then, a little calmer, “I’m sure.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the head of Julian’s Holon swivel in their direction, which she stalwartly ignores.

“...Alright,” Leon relents. “We’re wrapping up in five, let’s let ‘em know.”

Jodie hits the comms the call back the gen:LOCK team, and Miranda heads back to dock her Strider, and she grips the controls tight enough that her fingers creak under the pressure.

* * *

 

She’s walking down the hall when Julian shimmers beside her, and she stops in her tracks.

“Hey,” he says softly with a crooked little smile.

She offers a tight smile in return. “Hey.”

There’s a moment of silence before Miranda blurts, “Can we talk?” the same time Julian says, “Can I ask you something?”

They stare at each other for a second before Miranda snickers and Julian sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

“Uh. Yeah. You first,” he offers.

“Sure, just—meet me in the barracks in five?”

Chase nods and flickers away, and Miranda heaves a huge sigh, biting her tongue and trekking down to the barracks.

* * *

 

She gets there in four minutes, which is good, because she needs the time to clear her head. She sits on the edge of her bunk, elbows braced on her knees and head hanging down.

She hears the hum of an MR overlay coming to life, and when she lifts her head, Chase is sitting next to her.

“Dr. Weller wants me to talk to Nemesis,” she says without preamble.

“Yeah. He told me he would try to do that.”

Miranda’s hands ball into fists, and she stares at them instead of looking at Chase’s face. “You know what that thing is, don’t you? You and Weller. It’s… something like you.”

He shifts next to her, body shimmering where it touches the bed. “Yeah,” he says again. “It is.”

“I don’t want to talk to it,” she bites out. “I don’t want to look at it and see you instead. I… I want _you_ to be real.”

“I am,” Julian says softly. “It’s fucked, I know—” Miranda lets out a startled laugh at his curse, and he grins a little— “but I’m me. I’m here.”

She wants nothing more than to rest her head on his shoulder, to feel the rumble of his chest while he talks, wants it so much that her chest aches with it.

She slides her hand towards Julian’s where it rests on the bed, watches it faze through.

“There—there is something you should know,” he continues haltingly. “The doctor’ll probably tell you if you talk to him again, but you should know beforehand.”

She looks up. Julian’s expression is tight, and he’s avoiding her eyes.

“Nemesis—is me. I can’t lie to you about that.”

Miranda exhales sharply. “I know.”

He lets out a tiny huff of laughter. “You know me too well, huh? The new color-scheme didn’t throw you off?”

“I figured it was from a remnant of your edgy middle school phase,” she retorts, startling a laugh—a real one—from him.

“Four years later and you’re still gonna make me regret that, huh?”

She smiles a little. “You’re never living that down,” she says.

They’re quiet for a moment, sitting side by side.

“There’s more to it, isn’t there?” Miranda says.

“...Yeah. There is.”

“Tell me.”

He tells her.

* * *

 

“If you wanna get real technical with it, we’re both ‘your’ Chase,” he says, entirely unhelpfully. “Since it was still after the crash—”

Miranda reflexively punches him in the shoulder, and her fist sails harmlessly through. “Don’t even joke about that!”

Julian snickers, leaning into her. Cyan flickers where his shoulder touches hers.

She smiles despite the pang in her chest, then sighs. “Julian,” she mumbles, closing her eyes, “what am I going to do?”

“Nothing that you don’t want to,” comes his response.


	2. Chapter 2

Miranda mulls it over for a couple days more before she sends the doctor a message.

“I’ll do it.”

* * *

He’s been stripped of his limbs, and an image of Julian in his tank flashes before her eyes so strongly that Miranda has to blink it away.

Even missing over half his height, the mech is still terrifyingly large, spiked pauldrons jutting over his head and pointed helm only adding to the imposing figure. Thick cables hold the chassis upright, wrapping around the chest and waist.

“Miranda,” Nemesis says in his broken-record jitter. “M-m-miss me?”

“Really can’t leave you alone, huh?” she says dryly. “Four years and suddenly there’s two of you.”

Nemesis makes a warped hissing sound, head shuddering. “The _copy_.” If he could scowl, he probably would, disdain laced through his voice like poison.

The bright lights of his eye suddenly focuses on her. “I missed you. They w-wouldn’t let me see you.”

Miranda blinks.“The Union?” She figures that would be a given.

“ _Them_. The _copy_. The _doctor_.”

She bites her tongue. She doesn’t want to tell him that she’s the one who’s been putting it off. “I’m here now.”

“You _replaced_ me.”

“You were gone,” she says simply. She’s… already had this conversation before, and it’s both easier and harder in different ways.

He twitches, and the next words are too distorted for her to understand.

Miranda frowns, brow furrowing. “What?”

There’s a beat of silence, then, quietly, steadily, Nemesis says, “I missed you.” The lights of optics are focused entirely on her, unwavering.

She swallows thickly. “I missed you, too,” she manages through the knot at her throat.

Nemesis makes a sound not unlike a sigh, and something about him seems… calmer, if only for the moment.

Miranda flinches when her comms ping. Leon. “I—I have to go. I’ll come back and talk later, okay?”

Nemesis doesn’t move, doesn’t respond, but his gaze stays pinned on her as she leaves, burning a hole in her back.

* * *

Chase flickers into existence next to her about halfway to the training grounds, keeping pace with her as she marches back to the main site.

“How’d it go?” he asks gently.

Miranda manages a wry smile. “Not _awful_. It was… I don’t know. Weird. Uncomfortable.”

“I bet.”

She pauses for a moment, lets the silence linger while she sorts through her thoughts.

“I think there’s some of you left in there. Some of Julian Chase. I don’t know how much, and it’s definitely not all there, but some,” Miranda says finally.

“What makes you say that?” Chase asks. There’s the barest hint of defensiveness in his tone, but it’s mostly curiosity.

She hesitates. “He said,” she starts slowly, “that he missed me.”

* * *

Miranda makes it out to the makeshift training field with her Walker just as Cammie skates out of the hangar. Julian’s Holon hums to life shortly after as he reconnects, posture straightening and cyan lights gleaming.

“What’s the game plan today?” Cammie chirps, skidding to a stop next to Kazu. “Battle sim? Shooting practice?”

“We’re testing you,” Leon replies, and Miranda can hear the smirk as clearly as she sees it on the monitor. “Capture the flag. Let’s see how much you’ve improved.” 

* * *

They’ve improved a lot, actually.

It the same three-on-three as the first time they ran it, with Chase and Yasamin watching on as Kazu, Valentina, and Cammie take on the Walkers.

Kazu barrels into Jodie and distracts Leon long enough that Cammie slips by, hand inches from the flag before Miranda clips her with a backwards shot, and then promptly tags Valentina and Kazu as they attempt a pincer movement.

There’s grumbles from the gen:LOCK squad and Jodie whoops triumphantly, and they reset.

Leon fires the starting shot, and the gen:LOCK team scatters, hiding behind the massive pillars.

“Whatever they’re planning, we probably won’t like it,” Jodie quips lightly, and Miranda snorts.

“Stay focused,” Leon warns, just in time for Cammie to come skating, full speed, to their right. She dives between the legs of Jodie’s Strider, and he realigns the guns fires the first few rounds the same time Kazu leaps out of his hiding spot, bodily lifting the Strider. Jodie yelps, shots going wide—and tagging Leon in the process, who sighs dejectedly.

Miranda centers her sights on Cammie, who’s sprinting for the flagpole, only to get slammed into by Valentina just as she starts to pull the trigger. Her shots miss, and—

“FUCK YEAH!” Cammie howls, brandishing the pole like a weapon. “CANNAE BELIEVE IT?!” She tackles Valentina in a hug, and the both of them are lifted off the ground when Kazu grabs them in a bear hug.

Leon claps politely as Jodie groans.

“About time,” Julian says, and Miranda can practically hear his grin through the comms. Yasamin elbows him, clanking loudly against his side.

“Congrats,” Leon says dryly, although there’s no hiding the warmth in his voice. “Now do it again.”

And then the Walker team soundly beats the gen:LOCK in the next round. And the round after that.


End file.
